Under the Weather
by Eponymous Rose
Summary: Wash, Maine, and Project Freelancer. Sometimes the only constant is the rain.
1. Chapter 1

The first time he meets a Freelancer, it's in the pouring rain.

David is standing knee-deep in the mud of the battlefield, swaying on his feet, blood and rainwater streaming through gashes in his bodysuit. The Freelancers look strange and garish against that bleak backdrop, one in teal armor, the other in improbably spotless white. The woman in teal's been talking to him, telling him about reassignment and promotions and experimental programs. Telling him he's been _selected_, her own proud anticipation seeping into the word. Telling him that this is a rare honor.

He stares up at her, way up—she's still solid in her footing while he's mired in the muck. He tries to remember how to loosen his grip on the stock of his rifle, how to clear his throat and speak instead of barking orders. Field promotion. Rest of his unit's command center wiped out. Not so much leading as desperately holding position. Four days, maybe five, no relief in sight, and then the Freelancers come charging in, sending the Covies packing.

It took the two of them less than an hour to do it.

"You have conducted yourself with exceptional valor," the Freelancer repeats, a little more uncertain in the face of his blank stare. "Your commanders have recommended you for special training."

He's having trouble focusing on her beyond the rain seeping through a gash in his helmet's faceplate. The smell of the rain on this planet isn't quite right, sickeningly salty and harsh against his tongue. "Thank you," he says, because it's what she wants to hear, because sheer dogged inertia isn't a virtue, isn't any kind of heroism. "I'm just, ah. I'm just a little tired."

Her body language changes, and he's oddly cheered when her boot skids in the mud as she moves closer. But then he's stumbling, putting a knee to the ground, finally letting go of his rifle in his attempt to steady himself.

Her silent companion gets to him first.

The guy's _huge_, got 'team heavy' written all over him. David has a confused memory of watching him take out a half-dozen Elites with his fists alone. His hands are gentle now, hooking David's elbow, holding him steady while he gets his feet back under him.

"So." David's pleased at the strength of his own voice, considering the rainwater dribbling down his forehead, dripping from his nose. Considering the blood. "You the cavalry or something?"

The guy thinks about it for a while, then rumbles, "Always."

* * *

Training's rough. Especially since the name 'Washington' just doesn't stick in his head, and he spends the first week staring blankly whenever the Director calls out orders. He's never been much good at codenames, at any of that spy stuff. Never had the subtlety for it.

He meets the twins, North and South Dakota. Takes on South in hand-to-hand on his first day in the training arena and gets his left wrist broken for his troubles. They come to see him in Medical, North hovering with a nervous grin, South slamming herself casually into the chair beside him.

"Dragged you in for observation, huh?"

David—no, _Washington—_shrugs. "Protocol. Just a busted wrist, but it's my first time here, so they need—" He waves his good hand vaguely. "—tests and things."

She stares at the immobilized limb with an open fascination that he finds only marginally less annoying than North's fidgeting. "You left-handed?"

"Uh," he says. "Yeah."

"Ooh," she says. "Sorry, kid. That's gonna make... certain things difficult, for a while."

"South," North says quellingly

"Don't worry," Wash says, deadpan. "For that, I'm ambidextrous."

South stares at him for a long moment, then bursts out laughing. Behind her, North presses the palm of his hand to his face, but Wash is pretty sure he's hiding a smile "You gotta watch your guard, dumbass," she says, once she's recovered her composure. "Nevada got his hand ripped right off in battle trying a half-assed judo throw like you did."

He blinks. "Really?"

"Let's not play another round of 'scare the rookie', huh, South?" North offers Wash a smile that's equal parts good humor and apology. He's sincere, Wash realizes, and suddenly he isn't quite as annoyed by North's hovering.

South smirks at him. "Nah, I like this one. Let's keep him around."

"Oh my god South he's not a pet that followed you home," North mutters, all in one breath.

"Seriously," she says, kicking her feet up beside his on the cot. "You should come see me sometime once the Director's done trying to break you with his pseudo-training bullshit." (Another warning "_South_" from her brother.) "I can help you out with the hand-to-hand stuff. You're kind of terrible at it."

Wash shrugs, scratching at his arm. "They didn't bring me on for my hand-to-hand skills."

"I know the feeling," North says. "But trust me, the Director values well-rounded agents. If you want to get on that leaderboard, you should probably brush up on your CQC."

Wash is starting to feel like the conversation's getting away from him. He wonders whether the painkillers might be kicking in. "Why should I care about the leaderboard?"

South and North exchange glances, and for a second he can see the family resemblance in the worry-lines that crease their brows. Then South shrugs. "I figure a storm's coming. Might be the leaderboard lets the Director know who gets the first lifeboats."

"Might be nothing," North says, as though they're picking up some longstanding argument where they left off.

"Might not be."

A nurse comes in then to check his vitals, and on that ambiguous note the twins leave his bedside. Wash slumps back against the thin sheets and tries to ignore the glare of the fluorescent lights, at least enough to drop into a fitful doze.

* * *

A hand on his shoulder pulls him out of sleep, and he kicks and thrashes for a moment, disoriented. Then he recognizes the gold helmet and white armor, the team heavy. Hasn't seen the guy since his rescue out in the ass-end of nowhere. _Agent Maine_, his brain spits out belatedly.

The Director of Project Freelancer is standing at Maine's side, hands behind his back, lips pulled into a tight, thin line. "I have an assignment for you, Agent Washington."

Wash stares at him, trying to focus his sleep-blurred vision. There's an IV in the crook of his elbow, feeding him painkillers that make his stomach churn and smear his thoughts out against the hazy backdrop of his mind. "Sir?"

"Agent Maine was wounded in battle one week ago. We have need of somebody with your talents for mid-range marksmanship to test his performance."

Wash blinks, rubbing at his eyes with his right hand. His left wrist twinges. "I, uh. I have a broken wrist. Sir."

"Yes," says the Director. "You do."

Wash stares at him, waiting for the punchline, then looks over to Maine, who stands at impassive, silent attention. "Um," Wash says.

The Director leans forward, and Wash shrinks back in his cot. "There is an order to things, Agent Washington. The system determines the training regimen. I cannot delay because of your careless injury. I believe you were informed of the high demands this Project will place on you."

Wash looks at Maine and remembers the rain, and the blood. Remembers what he owes the Project. Remembers what South said about breaking. "Yeah," he says, roughly. "Yes, sir. Just give me a minute to get suited up, here."

An hour later, he's standing back in the training ring.

The scowling doctor pumped him full of an extra dose of painkillers and a mild stimulant before he left, gave him strict instructions to stick to single-shot, to avoid the added recoil of burstfire. Cursed the Director under her breath. Wash nodded and kept quiet and swallowed down nausea.

Now he's swaying on his feet, staring down a hulking behemoth in white and gold and trying very hard not to remember the sound of snapping bones.

"Agent Washington's vitals are less than optimal," a voice says, and it takes Wash a moment to place it as the facility's AI.

"Understood, FILSS," the Director says. He's standing in the observation room, and Wash winces when he realizes the twins are up there beside him, watching curiously. The woman in teal—Agent Carolina, top of the leaderboard—is at his right side, arms crossed, and someone Wash doesn't know, wearing gold armor, is leaning against the wall behind her in a would-be casual pose.

They look very much like an audience waiting for the curtain to rise. Wash shifts his gaze to Maine, hesitantly opens their armor's text-based comm frequencies. _**Were you really hurt?**_

Maine jolts a little, as though surprised at the intrusion. He hesitates, visibly stalling as he loads the lockdown paint rounds into his shotgun, and then replies, _**No.**_

_**This isn't training for you. This is a test for me, after that less-than-impressive fight with South this morning.**_

_**Yes.**_

Wash clenches his hands into fists, feels the burn as bone grinds against bone in his left wrist. _**The Director's a bit of a dick, huh?**_

Maine doesn't hesitate this time, signals a brief smile with his hand. _**Yes.**_

"Begin," the Director says.

Wash's rifle is still clipped onto his back, but the room is shifting, columns rising from the floor, so he has just enough time to fling himself into cover and pull it free. Just _holding_ the damn weapon hurts, and he sucks in a breath, trying to find a comfortable grip and still keep track of Maine, who hasn't fired off a single shot yet.

His heart is pounding too fast, too loud in his ears. He steals a glimpse around cover in time to see a flash of white, fires a single, experimental shot that he's nearly certain will miss.

The paint splatters against a column, a few flecks marring the white of Maine's armor, but Wash barely has time to notice before the pain of the rifle's kick really registers, sharp agony streaking like an arrow through his damaged bones. He chokes on a scream, jerks back into cover, tries to keep a grip on the gun with his spasming hand.

His pain-dulled senses are slow to report movement in his peripheral vision, and Wash turns sluggishly just in time to take a shotgun blast directly to the chest.

The paint hardens instantly, triggering a lockdown that manifests as a tingling jolt up and down his extremities. With his armor locked solid, he tips over, almost comically, and the jarring landing sends another wave of pain through his arm.

Wordlessly, Maine leans over him and applies the solvent to the paint. It finally releases its hold on his armor around the same time as Wash manages to catch his breath.

"Round one goes to Agent Maine," FILSS says. "Please reposition."

Maine jogs back to the starting position, doesn't offer him a hand up. That's a clue, Wash thinks muzzily. He's expected to prove something, here.

Wash staggers back to his feet just as FILSS says, "Round two: begin."

This time, he switches the rifle to his right hand as he spins into cover, fires off a couple clumsy one-handed shots as suppression while he gets his bearings. He figures the distance between the columns is a little longer on one axis than the other. Files that thought away for future reference.

Maine is moving, taking exactly the same route as before. Wash sucks in a breath, dodges back into cover, then steadies the rifle with his bad hand to pull off a single shot. It misses, embarrassingly wide of the mark. This time Maine shoots him point-blank in the face.

Wash fades out for a second, then jolts awake flat on his back with the paint already dissolved from his helmet's faceplate. FILSS is saying, "Alert! Medical assistance to the training room floor!"

"Belay that," the Director says, sounding irritated. "He's awake."

Wash rolls onto his side, coughing, and then drags himself to his feet. Maine is back in position. "Round three," FILSS says, but Wash is already moving.

He throws himself behind a piece of cover on the diagonal, switching the axes of the firefight, and fumbles with his rifle, activating burstfire and clamping his shaking left hand around the grip, easing his finger over the trigger. By the time he's got it done, Maine is already halfway to him.

Maine hasn't noticed the extra distance between the columns on this approach.

Wash catches him in the split-second before he reaches cover, sends a burst of three paint pellets at him. The third one hits Maine's left hand, pinning it to the wall behind him.

The burstfire recoil sends a sickening snap through Wash's left wrist, and he doubles over, gasping into his suit's rebreather, his HUD lighting up with helpful warnings about hyperventilation. He can hear the snarl in Maine's voice, and then a crackling, crumbling noise. He looks up in time to see Maine dragging his arm free of the lockdown paint and raising his shotgun.

Everything fades out again, for longer this time.

* * *

When he wakes up, there's somebody unfamiliar beside his bed, wearing gold armor but no helmet. He's also eating jello.

Wash stares at him, finally places him as the mysterious figure who'd been standing behind Carolina in the observation room. A mysterious figure... currently eating jello. His brain keeps coming back to that fact, and it takes him a while to dig far enough past the haze to realize that it must be _his_ jello the mysterious figure's eating.

"Hey," Wash mumbles. "My jello."

The guy blinks, then breaks into a beaming grin. "Hah. Medics said you had a sweet tooth. Figured this might be enough to perk you up."

Wash squints at him. "I don't think the theft of a patient's dessert is a recognized medical practice."

"Hey, man, whatever gets results. I'm York, by the way. Infiltration guy. Don't think we've met." York—third on the leaderboard, Wash remembers—sticks the spoon in his mouth and holds out the half-empty cup. "Want the rest?"

Wash sighs. "All yours."

York grins and digs back in. "Nice showing out on the training floor, by the way. You're quick and you're a good shot. I didn't realize you were out there with a broken wrist, too. I mean, the Director had to have known you were hurt. Why the hell'd he set you up against Maine, anyway?"

Wash shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable with the talkative agent and his too-wide smile. "My guess is, he was planning on kicking me out after the match against South this morning. Needed a reason to keep me around."

York thinks about that, spoon halfway to his mouth, then shrugs. "You must've given him a reason. You're on the main roster, now. Once you're mostly recovered—which, by the way, is gonna be more like three weeks now with all the new and exciting ways you messed up your arm—you'll be running missions with the rest of us. So how'd you pull that off?"

"I guess he picked me in the first place because I didn't give up when I should have," Wash says. Whatever painkiller's currently flowing through his veins is also loosening his tongue. "He wanted to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Once I realized that, all I needed to do was keep going until I either won or passed out."

York winces. "Man, that does not sound like a healthy attitude. You're a little messed up, aren't you?"

"I was told it was a job requirement."

"Hah," York says. "You thinking new motivational posters in the mess? 'You don't have to be suicidally brave to work here, but it helps?'"

"Something like that."

They lapse into a thoughtful silence, and then York's eyes go wide. "Uh," he says. "I think you've got another visitor."

Wash glances over to the door. White armor, gold helmet. He's surprised at the surge of fond familiarity that rushes through him at the sight. "Hey, Maine."

Maine grunts and turns to look at York, who flushes. "Uh," he says again. "Yeah, I'm gonna just, I'm gonna just leave. Quietly. No trouble here." He fumbles with the jello cup, then awkwardly jams the spoon into his mouth and raises both hands, backing cautiously out of the room.

Wash watches him go with a grin tugging at the corners of his lips. "What the hell was that?"

Maine shrugs. "Beat him up once."

"On or off the training room floor?"

Maine thinks about it. "Both. Put him through a wall."

Wash snorts, then drags the rest of his tray of food closer, picking sadly at the congealed mass of something that may once have aspired to be rice. Maine watches him for a moment, then reaches out and drops a fresh cup of jello onto his tray. "Whoa," Wash says. "Where'd you get that?"

Maine shrugs.

"Well, y'know. Thanks."

"Sorry," Maine says, after a moment. "I had orders."

"I know," Wash says. "It's okay. I owe the Director, too."

Maine's shoulders roll once, signaling discomfort, and Wash looks down, focusing on peeling back the lid of the jello one-handed. "Hey," he says. "South told me earlier there's a storm coming. You ever get that feeling, too?"

Maine gives a long, slow sigh. "Always."


	2. Chapter 2

The first time Agent Washington is assigned to a Freelancer ground team, it's raining so hard he can barely see in front of him.

He and Maine are providing support and diversion for an infiltration team made up of Agent York, Agent Carolina, and the unsettlingly cheerful Agent Florida. Florida once visited Wash in the infirmary with a ridiculously huge bouquet of flowers and offered to give him knife-throwing lessons. Wash resolved, privately, to stay the hell away from anyone who described the ideal growing conditions for orchids on a spaceship in the same breath as he described the easiest way to slit a man's throat while he slept.

Now, with his rifle torn from his hands by a near-miss explosion, his sidearm jammed and gummed up with muddy debris, brawling inelegantly in a mess of Insurrectionist soldiers, Wash is seriously starting to regret not taking Florida up on that offer.

The infiltration team's already in position, gathering data of some sort—the Director hadn't briefed him on the details, and Wash hadn't asked. Maine is about five hundred meters to his left, according to his HUD. For all intents and purposes, Wash is alone.

One Innie soldier grabs him from behind. Another moves in to press the barrel of a Magnum under Wash's chin. She doesn't fire; she's shouting something that doesn't quite register over the constant rumble of thunder and crashing of rain and hail. Wash redistributes the power in his armor, adding a force to his kick that surprises even him, crumpling the chestplate of her armor like it's paper. He twists, squirming in the grip of the startled man behind him for an awkward moment before he realizes he hasn't restored full power to his arms yet. When he does, it's trivial to break the hold and whip back around, to grab the man's pistol and unload it into his gut. If he shouts, the wind carries the sound away.

Wash weaves back, keeping to the trees for cover, fires off two quick shots to pick off the next attackers, then staggers as something punches into his shoulder, bleeding away his shields. The second shot skips across his chestplate but doesn't penetrate his bodysuit, and by then he's close enough to pick off the sniper with his pistol.

He breathes hard, slumping against a tree in the sudden stillness, reassuring himself with probing fingers that neither of the shots broke the skin, then opens his text comm. _**You alive?**_

Maine's reply is delayed. _**Need help.**_

Wash sucks in a breath, reloads his pistol, and jogs through the mud, following the indicator on his HUD, belatedly setting up a sensor overlay to keep the strobing flares of lightning from tripping him up in the darkness. The thunder's so loud, so constant, that he almost stumbles into the fight before he hears the screaming.

Someone staggers past him, hand clutched over the blood fountaining from her throat, and then Wash sees Maine. His armor isn't clean anymore; even in the darkness Wash can make out the blood coating it. He's tearing through the Innie ranks with a knife in one hand and a shotgun in the other. He's actually _wielding a shotgun one-handed_.

There's also a hole in his helmet, cracks spiderwebbing out across the gold. Maine is staggering. His biocomm readouts have always looked kind of odd, but not... not like this.

"Fuck," Wash whispers, and stumbles into the fray in time to pick off the sniper already taking aim at Maine from behind. He reopens the text comm channel. _**These guys are dicks.**_

He feels Maine shrug in response behind him, figures okay, yeah, that means he's probably all right, and then they both flinch at a particularly bright bolt of lightning. Carolina's voice comes over the radio with the thunder, eerily calm and professional. "Ground team, report."

"We're here, boss," Wash says. "Maine's hurt. We can try to get to the rendezvous—"

"Negative," Carolina says, then pauses. "How bad's Maine?"

"Fine," Maine says, driving his ka-bar into an Insurrectionist's chest.

Carolina doesn't hesitate. "Okay. We got ambushed here—somebody tipped them off. York's down, I'm wounded. We need you to hold your position until we can find an alternative route to evac."

"Uh," says Wash, just as his pistol clicks empty. He wonders vaguely if he might be able to do some damage throwing it at somebody. "Yeah. Okay, we can do that."

"Hang in there," Carolina says. "Out."

Wash's HUD flickers with the next flash of lightning, and he stumbles back against Maine, disoriented. A strafing line of assault rifle fire stops just short of hitting him. _**I'm empty. You take out anyone with a rifle earlier?**_

In response, Maine throws up a marker on Wash's HUD. Wash holds his breath, counts out the reload time for the guy shooting at him, then throws himself forward into a tight roll, fumbling for the battle rifle along the way, gunfire raising spatters of mud behind him. He finishes his roll covered in mud, awkwardly sliding to his knees, but assault-rifle guy's out in the open and in the middle of reloading. Easy pickings. Only after he's down does Wash check the magazine of his new rifle—it's not empty, but near enough that he'll have to watch his shots. Okay. Nothing new there.

Okay.

A low rattling noise rumbles over the noise of the thunder. It takes Wash too long to separate the two sounds. It takes him too long, and for weeks he dreams about that sound. In his dreams, he always figures it out sooner.

The chaingun fire mows Maine down before he even realizes what's happening.

Wash staggers, stunned, watching bullets punch through Maine's chest, watching Maine go limp all at once. Watching Maine falling, and then lightning striking somewhere nearby, the roar of thunder drowning out the chaingun again.

Wash scrambles back, drags himself behind a tree, huddles down as the gunner swings around to fire at him. He's breathing way too fast.

"C'mon," he mutters. Chunks of bark are flying around him, and he can hear the groan of his makeshift cover starting to collapse. "_C'mon_."

When the first bullet pings off his armor, he drags himself from cover, fires off one three-shot burst from his rifle. Catches the gunner in the visor, takes him down.

He stumbles over a protruding tree root, fires blind at a flash of color somewhere to his left. Hears a gratifying scream. Gets back to his feet, keeps running.

Maine is lying still. His armor's systems, including biocomm, are offline. Swearing, Wash digs into his emergency pack, drags out a needle of biofoam, jams it into the first wound he sees. Digs into Maine's emergency pack for a second needle.

Someone takes a potshot at him. Wash half-turns, taking him down with two shots. Four left in the clip. It's not until he's injecting Maine that he realizes there's an ache low on his own shoulder that throbs in time with his heartbeat. His HUD is flashing a warning: armor integrity compromised. His own biocomm is setting off alarms: blood pressure, heartrate, respiration. He disables it.

He opens a channel. "Infiltration team, come in." His voice is hoarse, shaky.

"Not now," Carolina yells, so loud in his ears that he jumps. Gunfire echoes across the radio.

Wash is putting pressure on the remaining wounds, fumbling with clumsy hands. His fingers are cold inside his gloves. "Maine's down," he says. "We're dying out here."

He hears a little grunt from Carolina's comm, a wet-sounding gasp. She coughs, and for a moment Wash closes his eyes, focusing on his own ragged breathing. "Okay," she says. "Okay. We're going to try for the extraction point. We can swing back to pick you up."

Wash exhales. "Okay, boss. Good luck."

"You too."

The lightning's not nearly as intense now, the storm moving off. Wash slumps over Maine's body, listening for the rumbling of his breathing over the rumbling of thunder.

The whole thing feels eerily familiar. And, hell, he'd kind of liked the idea that Project Freelancer was a rescue for him, dragging him out of the muck and the mire. Maybe not. Maybe it was only ever a stay of execution. "We've gotta stop meeting like this," he mumbles into Maine's shoulder.

He hears motion, fires blind. Misses. Fires again, raising his head, and this time someone goes down. Two shots left.

His motion trackers pick up four more people incoming. Wash sighs, opens a text comm into the dead air. _**Think I can take 'em all down with two bullets? Saw a guy pull that off once.**_ No reply. His HUD flashes a warning that his intended recipient does not have a functional communications system.

His HUD paints the incoming shapes as friendlies.

He doesn't believe it at first, staring blankly into space and refocusing on the display a few times to test his vision. Then a comm opens, and South's voice comes in, loud and strident. "You dipshits still alive?"

Wash laughs, sinking down again until his helmet's pressed against Maine's armor. "Over here," North calls. "I see them on trackers."

"I don't."

"You didn't _set your goddamn trackers_, South."

"Would you fuck off with that? You and Connie take these guys, me and Wyoming'll go after the others."

"Be careful."

South snorts. Moments later, North says, "Oh, hell," softly, and it's only then that Wash realizes he hasn't opened his comm line yet, that Maine's biocomm is offline and his own is disabled. He can't quite bring himself to care. They'll figure it out. Or they won't.

Someone moves up to him, hesitantly, and Wash raises his head, trying to focus. Brown armor, fancy helmet. Bomb-disposal, maybe. "They're alive," she says, then leans down, resting a hand on Wash's shoulder. "You're alive, right?"

Wash sways and her grip on his shoulder tightens, shifting to apply biofoam to the bullet wound in his back. "Uh," he says, when the pain-fogged haze finally starts to clear his vision. "Jury's still out. Maine... Maine needs help. Sounded like Carolina and York are hurt pretty bad. I don't know about Florida."

"Nobody ever really knows about Florida," she says, vaguely. "North?"

North is crouched over Maine, applying biofoam. "Yeah, Connie, these guys need to get back to the ship, quick. I don't know what the hell the Director was thinking, sending them into something like this."

"Someone tipped them off," Wash says. He keeps sinking forward and Connie keeps pulling him back. He's shaking, adrenaline-sick. "Is Maine—"

"He's still breathing," North says, reassuringly. "We get him up to the ship, he's got a good chance. Takes a lot to keep this guy down."

"Can you stand?" Connie asks, and it's such a ridiculous demand that Wash just sort of stares at her blankly. But she's already dragging his arm over her shoulders, and he's surprised to find a little strength in his legs yet, manages to push himself to his feet. "I'm gonna go drop this guy off at the Pelican, bring back help for Maine," she says.

"I think Maine's stable for now," North says. "Go ahead. Watch your sectors."

It's only about a klick to the dropship. Halfway there, South comes over the line, says, "Fuck. Carolina's pretty fucked up. Florida says York stopped breathing twice before we got here."

"He did start right up again after that." Florida's voice is jarringly cheerful. "They'll pull through. None of this negative thinking, my girl!"

"If you call me that again, I am going to burn everything you love."

"Now, there's some honest self-expression! Most important part of any human interaction, you know."

"Is my telling you to fuck yourself sideways an important part of human interaction, too?"

"Absolutely! I'm so glad we had this talk."

"Don't count us out yet," Carolina says. Her voice is strong, but there's an audible wheeze in her breathing. "And cut the chatter. There are still hostiles around."

Another voice comes over the line, unexpectedly and startlingly British. "North, Wyoming here. I'm inbound to your location to assist with Agent Maine."

"Copy that."

The long, slow stumble to the Pelican is another feature in Wash's future nightmares. Stumbling through the dark, Connie silent and patient at his side, rain falling hard against his helmet, drowning out the last faint rumbles of thunder. Listening to North and Wyoming murmur over the open comm, prepping Maine to be moved. Waiting for another bullet to the back that never comes.

By the time they stagger into the Pelican, Wash is shivering uncontrollably. A medic is waiting, and Wash makes a token effort to help unclasp his armor's chestpiece before he realizes his hands are shaking too badly.

The medic smiles at him, and he recognizes Saresh, a young man from the MoI's medical bay who'd been particularly lenient with jello distribution during Wash's stay. "Hey, it's okay. You're just a bit shocky. Let's get you lying down so we can take a look at that hole in your back."

Wash sways, blinking, and clumsily fumbles off his helmet. The voices on the comm line go blessedly quiet, but the rain and the wind outside are louder, amplified. Connie's helping Saresh pull off Wash's armor, calm and silent. Connie. Agent Connecticut, presumably. He can't remember seeing her name on the leaderboard, but then, his head's a little foggy. He's probably forgetting a lot of things.

Stripped down to his bodysuit, he sinks uncomfortably onto his stomach along a row of seats, wincing as Saresh starts excising the fabric near the wound.

The pilot picks that moment to swing into the passenger compartment. She pauses, regarding him critically. "Another rookie shot full of holes, huh?"

"Just the one hole," Saresh says. "New record."

"Hey, good job, kid," the pilot says, moving past him to go stare out the back of the Pelican. "Try not to bleed too much on the upholstery."

Saresh injects Wash with something that instantly makes his eyelids droop and his thrumming heartrate slow. "No," he mumbles, "No, wait. I want to... the others..."

"Should've thought of that before you got shot," Saresh says, and Wash begins to reconsider any jello-based feelings of good will he might've harbored toward the guy.

Wash sighs, pressing his face into his forearm, breathing in the smell of blood and rain and kevlar. He glances up once, sees Connie watching him with her helmet under one arm, her brow furrowed. Her steady gaze follows him into the dark, into choking, confused nightmares, into blood and pain and fear, into the remembered void of the text comm on his HUD, flashing empty and silent.

* * *

This time, when Wash wakes up, he's not the only one in Medical.

It's dark, ship's night, and the only sound is the steady beeping of monitors. He rolls onto his side, feeling a strange, tingling numbness in his back, and sees that three other beds are occupied.

Carolina's in the cot nearest him. He's seen her out of armor before, but never looking so strange and small and pale, her face slack and unnaturally relaxed. It makes his stomach clench, sends a jolt of urgency through him.

He sits up slowly, waits for the room to stop tilting. This time, there's no IV in his arm. Untethered, he pushes himself carefully to his feet, shuffles across the room with one arm drawn in toward his chest as though for support.

York's in the bed beside Carolina, almost unrecognizable with his gelled hair flattened down by bandages, but his sleep seems more restful, more normal, one arm dangling off the edge of the bed, the other wedged under the pillow behind him. He's even snoring a little.

Maine is at the end of the row, and Wash pauses. It's practically the first time he's seen the guy out of armor, and all he can focus on is the angry red welt on his shaved head, scored by a near-miss gunshot. Couple inches down, it would've gone through his brain.

Trying to convince himself his shivering is just the natural result of being stuck in flimsy hospital pajamas, Wash pulls up a chair beside Maine's cot, sits down gingerly and hugs his knees to his chest.

Maine's eyes open, focus on him, and Wash jumps.

"Whoa," he says. "You're awake."

Maine's mouth twitches into a smile; Wash notices that his hand moves, first, to signal it. "I heal fast."

"No kidding." Wash is grinning broadly, aware that he probably looks ridiculous but unable to help it. "You probably took more hits than the rest of us combined. I'm glad you're okay."

Maine shrugs. "Thanks to you."

"Hey, we're Project Freelancer. We're the cavalry, right?"

Maine smiles again. "Always." His smile wipes itself away pretty quickly, though, and he cranes his neck to look at the others.

"York seems okay," Wash says. "Carolina's kinda freaking me out. I can't tell if it's just that I've never seen her so relaxed before."

Maine shrugs, his lips pressed into a tight line, and rubs at the welt on his head. "She's strong."

"Yeah," says a new voice. "She really is."

Maine doesn't react, but Wash jumps again, startled, and turns in his chair to see someone standing in the doorway. _Connie_, his brain spits out, belatedly.

"Sorry," she says. "Couldn't sleep, wanted to check in on you guys." She looks absolutely exhausted, dark circles bruised under her eyes.

"How are they?" Wash asks, nodding toward the others.

She shrugs. "Carolina managed to make it all the way back to the Pelican under her own power with two bullets in her lung. They think she's gonna be okay. York was critical for a while, but once they got the shrapnel out of his chest he started bouncing back. And Maine, well."

Maine gives a wordless shrug as testimonial.

Wash rubs the back of his head, then drags his fingers through his hair, standing it on end. He needs a haircut, he thinks. "What the hell happened? Was our intel bad?"

Connie looks away, a scowl on her face. "Someone tipped them off. They knew we were coming, knew our extraction points. I guess they just didn't know how many of us the Director sent."

"Oh man," Wash says. "Internals is gonna have a field day with that."

"Tell me about it," Connie says. "Be prepared to answer some awkward questions once you're healed up. By the way, you were in pretty good shape, all things considered. Bullet was slowed down enough by your bodysuit that it only tore some muscle and lodged in your rib. It's gonna hurt while it heals, but it definitely could've been worse. And you absolutely saved Maine's life, the doctors say."

Wash shrugs. "Could've been worse," he echoes.

"Yeah," Connie says. "Glad you guys are okay, anyway."

"Thanks for the rescue," Wash says, and she pauses in the doorway. "We definitely would've died out there if you guys hadn't shown up when you did."

She glances back at him for a moment, her face shuttered, then shrugs and leaves the room.

"She's a little odd," Wash says, sinking back in his chair. "Guess it comes with the job." He gnaws on an uneven thumbnail, staring at the wall for a long moment, then says, "You think there's a mole on board or something?"

Maine makes a noncommittal noise, and Wash is inclined to agree. He's never had a good head for all this spy stuff. Probably best to let Internals handle it.

"Hey," he says, "You should probably get some sleep."

Maine looks up at him, then slowly raises an eyebrow.

Wash holds up a hand. "I will too, I promise. I just need to, you know. Be awake for a little while longer."

Maine shrugs, closes his eyes.

"Oh, and Maine? Remind me to steal York's jello when he wakes up."


	3. Chapter 3

The motorcycle hums beneath him.

It's a Model 16ZW6, Wash thinks. Maybe a W7. It's got all sorts of mods that he's pretty sure don't meet environmental regulatory standards. The bright red button labeled, in shaky handwriting, "FUCK 'EM ALL" is probably attached to something particularly illegal. Out of respect for the bike's erstwhile owner and his own continued well-being, he doesn't press it.

He's speeding through the capital city of a colony by the name of Fell. Semi-abandoned after continued Covenant attacks, it's become one data point in the convoluted network of Insurrectionist intel transfer stations. Total shitheap punctuated by the odd wealthy neighborhood sheltering the more respectable class of arms dealers.

Feels a bit like home.

He's bent over the handlebars, feeling the tension in his shoulders bleeding away with the steady thrum of the engine and the deafening roar of the wind—not all the old memories are bad ones—when somebody finally manages to shoot out his back tire.

For a second, he convinces himself it's just another near-miss. In the next second, he's toppling over into an eighty-kph skid, one leg pinned beneath the bike, his shoulder torn up by the slushy grit of the street, his skull cracking against the pavement and—

He coughs, choking on the cold air that seeps harsh and raw through his lungs. He's fourteen, pinned under the remains of his first stolen bike, blinking blearily up at a punk kid with brass knuckles and a creative interpretation of the enforcement of property law. He's seventeen, wrecked on his way out of that same shithole of a city just as the Covies roll in. He's twenty-one, dragging his busted civilian motorbike on a supply run to the front lines for his asshole LT. He's muttering, "Oh, for _fuck's_ sake..."

He's a Freelancer. He's breathing.

Gunfire roars somewhere nearby—he'd forgotten how much it echoes in the city, pops and crackles like fireworks. He spits blood into the dirty, churned-up snow, tries to prop himself up on his right arm. When it gives way immediately beneath him, he swears, blinking back reactive tears, and refocuses his attention on dragging his leg out from beneath the bike.

The gunfire stops.

Someone's palm presses against his forehead, and Wash closes his eyes, sighing raggedly and slumping back into the snow. Maine is carding his fingers through Wash's hair to get at the gash in his scalp, apparently determined to find the single point on Wash's body that hurts the most, because _fucking shitting what the fuck._

"Sorry," Maine says, but doesn't relax his pressure on the wound. And then, with a cautious shove to the shoulder least acquainted with the cheese-grater of the road, he adds, "You baby."

Wash snorts, his eyes still shut. "Got it," he says. His voice is hoarse. He wrenches his good arm around to snatch at the flash drive in his pocket, brandishes it above his head in a wobbly grip. "I totally got the intel."

Maine takes it from his shaking hand. "You helped," he says, firmly.

Wash snorts, flinches when a jolt of pain spikes through his head and sparks flicker behind his eyelids. "Okay, Mr. Third-On-The-Leaderboard, so you got it in the first place, but you threw it at me when those guys tackled you. Did you see me hotwire that bike under fire? That's difficult. Holo-encryptions and everything." He fidgets, wincing, trying to find a comfortable position. Now that the adrenaline's wearing off, the deep ache of fractured bone is starting to penetrate even beyond the background scream of a particularly nasty case of road rash. "I, uh. I think I need a hospital."

"Really," Maine says, deadpan.

Wash finally opens one eye; he's shivering, whether from cold or shock or both he's not sure, and right now he's _really_ missing his armor. Maine looks unharmed except for a bright red mark on his forehead that's probably gonna become a bruise. He's also wearing a carefully blank expression that Wash has learned to interpret, perhaps optimistically, as fond exasperation.

Wash sighs, lets his head rest back against the snow as the sirens get louder and louder, their echoes eerily muffled by the snow. "Hey," he says. "You think they have jello in hospitals on Fell?"

* * *

As it turns out, they do not have jello in hospitals on Fell. What they do have is a secure comm relay that Maine manages to access via the expedient of persuasive glowering at everyone in sight, and with a few false starts they open a secure communications channel to the MoI. After checking Wash's hospital room for bugs, Maine actually drags the terminal in with him, and Wash props himself up in bed, feeling faintly ridiculous to be communicating with the Director while wearing hospital pyjamas. Maine looks even more ridiculous; he's proven especially susceptible to the cold on Fell, and has taken to wearing a bright orange beanie as his sole concession to the weather.

Once they've transferred their recovered intel, the Director is terse, abrupt: he wants Wash and Maine to remain deployed as a would-be civilian presence on Fell for three more days in order to facilitate Wash's convalescence and keep an eye out for any further Insurrection activity; yes, you may consider this shore leave; yes, the _Mother of Invention_ has important business that needs attending elsewhere; no, he is not required to explain to his agents the nature of that important business. Which is fine, Wash tells himself, staring down at his callused fingers resting on the too-white hospital sheets. It's fine. He's never had much of a head for logistics, in any case.

They don't ask about the leaderboard, but the Director tells them anyway. Wash holds steady at position six. Maine drops from third to fourth.

"That is all," the Director says.

Wash sinks back against his pillow, watching a muscle twitch in Maine's jaw; he's still leaning in close, staring at the blank screen of the portable terminal. Wash lifts one hand—his shoulder feels strange and stiff and twinges in protest—to poke him in the side. "Hey," he says. "It doesn't mean anything. Connie thinks he makes up the numbers just to mess with us."

Maine grunts.

Wash scowls and hitches himself up so he's marginally closer to eye-to-eye. "We've got a job, no matter where we are on that list. Right? We keep doing good."

Maine shrugs.

Wash sucks in a breath, sits up straight, and drags the front of the beanie down over Maine's eyes. His mission accomplished, he flops back on his bed, panting with the effort of keeping himself upright. "Hey," he says again, once he can breathe. Maine's just sort of sitting there with the hat over his eyes. "You okay?"

Maine finally growls, dragging the beanie off his head and rubbing at his scalp, but there's a twitch at the corner of his lips. Contrary to popular belief, Maine has a terrible poker face.

"Good," Wash says. "You're okay. I don't need you moping around while I'm malingering, here. I think we should— wait, where are you going?"

Maine pauses in the doorway, donning his beanie with gravitas. "Pizza."

"Aw, Maine. Maine, no. Maine, don't—" Wash pitches his voice into a wail that carries after Maine down the hall. "Don't leave me with the hospital food!"

Maine stays gone the rest of the evening, but when Wash thrashes himself awake in the middle of the night, sweating and bleary-eyed from the painkillers, he finds a small cup of jello sitting on the tray next to his bed.

* * *

The hospital discharges him two days later. His doctor explains, in a harried sort of way, that the risk of hospital-borne infection is high, especially with the skin graft on his shoulder and leg, and that he'll be better off convalescing at home. Wash avoids mentioning that he doesn't actually have a place of residence at the moment. Two days of white, sterile rooms is more than enough to have him searching for an escape route.

Once the paperwork is settled—Wash wonders, vaguely, what kind of cover story has the hospital staff quietly agreeing to waive all fees and keep misdirecting the cops—Maine props him up, watches with quiet amusement as he wobbles into a wall, then claps a hand on his shoulder and marches him out the door.

The cold air has a sobering effect. This means that Wash is completely clear-headed when he yelps, "Fucking what the _fuck_ it's cold!" and takes a step back toward the warmth bleeding out of the hospital. He's wearing fresh civvies that Maine dug out of his duffel, but they're not fancy climate-controlled power armor. He misses his fancy climate-controlled power armor.

"I miss my fancy climate-controlled power armor. How'd we pull an infiltration mission, anyway?" He rubs irritably at his arm, still in a sling, and takes a resigned step out into the cold. "York's out of the infirmary. Connie's not busy. Send _them _to the freezing planet full of Insurrectionist informants."

Maine shrugs, unsympathetically, and pulls a beanie out of his pocket. A bright orange beanie that's the twin of the one he's currently wearing.

"You have got to be kidding me," Wash says.

"They had a sale."

Wash stares at the beanie, stares at Maine, then sighs and tugs it over his head, careful to avoid the fresh scar in his hairline. He inspects his reflection woefully in a nearby shop front. "See, you can pull it off. Anyone laughs at you, they know you're gonna tear them limb from limb. I just look like an asshole."

"Always," Maine says, nudging him with an elbow, and Wash risks a twinge of pain to smack him in the shoulder.

They've walked several blocks before Wash's brain finally catches up with his feet. "Where are we going?"

"Pizza," Maine says.

"Oh thank god." Wash huffs a contented sigh, watches his breath curl in the air, and tugs his beanie down further over his ears. "Do we have a plan? Or are we just gonna eat pizza for the next twenty-four hours?"

Maine shrugs.

"See, that's what I like about you. You're always so decisive."

* * *

The pizza's good. It's some Earth knock-off junk that doesn't hold a candle to the kimchi pizza that was all the rage on Wash's home colony, but it's warm and probably working on clogging his arteries with every bite. It's also finger-food that's especially easy to navigate with one arm in a sling, and the Earth-nostalgia decor of the pizzeria is complete with warm colors and a few jumping fountains to catch the eye. It's late enough that they have the place to themselves. Wash sighs contentedly, burrowing deeper into his corner of the booth, and downs a handful of painkillers with a swig of something that claims to be Super Sparkle Soda but is clearly some off-brand ripoff.

Maine, having just inhaled an entire pie, is staring past him out the window. Perched on a chair turned backwards, he seems distant and menacing, like the power armor's not so much military equipment as it is a state of mind.

Well. Maybe the bright orange beanie dilutes the effect. A little.

The fountains keep snagging Wash's attention, flickers of green and gold light dancing at the bottom of a deep pool at their base, the jumping jets of water capturing rainbows from prisms hung strategically throughout the room. The overall effect is gaudy by design. The fountains originally sprang up as status symbols anywhere droughts or desertification made water scarce, then found their way to the poorer districts as a necessary concession to style. Wash remembers spending a lot of time as a kid sitting on the floor of a falafel place that couldn't even afford decent tables, watching the reflected light sparkle and shine on the grimy ceiling. In the heavily polluted city with its hazy nights, he used to pretend the lights were stars.

He sighs heavily, grabs for his third slice. He notices something in Maine's hand.

Maine has curiously long, thin fingers—Wash has seen him cut and shuffle a deck of cards one-handed—and now those fingers are turning a small flash drive over and over across his knuckles, a show of casual dexterity.

"Maine," he says, cautiously. Maine doesn't react, still staring out the window. "Maine, what's that?"

Maine finally cocks his head to one side, stops playing with the drive, and holds it out.

Instead of taking it, Wash goes back to his pizza, chewing thoughtfully, watching the fountains jump, watching the hypnotic swirls of light on the wall behind Maine. Then he swallows, carefully, and says, "That better not be what I think it is. The Director told—the Director _ordered_ you to wipe that drive after we transferred the data."

Maine taps the drive against the imitation-wood paneling of the table. "Didn't."

"Fucking _didn't_?" Wash lowers his voice self-consciously when the pizzeria's owner, a young woman standing behind the counter, looks curiously over to them. "Maine, you can't mess around with this stuff. That's... that's valuable intel! The Director wants it gone, it's gone."

The drive flickers between Maine's fingers, a sleight-of-hand spectacle that's annoyingly eye-catching. "Not necessarily."

Wash exhales, hard. He'd somehow escaped a serious concussion in the crash, but now he can feel a headache building behind his eyes. His voice comes out in a strained whisper. "So you're gonna, what, turn it in? Who the hell are you gonna take it to? We're the good guys, Maine. It's already reached the proper authorities."

Maine shrugs. "Could sell it."

"For what?" His voice cracks again. "What the hell do you need that the Director hasn't already given you?"

"Not for me." The drive stops spinning. Maine tosses it onto the table so it lands in front of Wash with a clink, like he's dealing out a hand in poker. Wash stares, makes no movement toward it.

"This supposed to be a gift?"

Maine has gone back to staring out the window.

Wash is vaguely aware that his voice is rising again, high and panicked. "Is this about the leaderboard? You acting out? 'Cause you've got lousy timing. What the _fuck_, Maine?"

A heavy sigh. Maine looks down at the flash drive between them. "Could go home."

Wash laughs, a harsh sound. He surprises himself a little, with that harshness. "_Fuck_ home."

"Could make a home."

Wash scrubs both hands back through his hair, because, fuck, now he's thinking about it. Now he's thinking about how much money he could dredge up with a drive full of intel about Insurrection targets. Sell to the highest bidder. Sell again to the Insurrection to reveal just how much information is on the open market. So much of Project Freelancer is off the books. It'd be one short step to disappear. Find somewhere quiet to live out the war.

A clattering at the window draws his attention. The lowering clouds that have been threatening all day are finally making good on their promise. The metallic rattle of sleet against the glass puts Wash in mind of the sound rain makes when it strikes the helmet of a suit of power armor.

Maine is watching him. Maine is... unsure of him, Wash realizes. He's got a lousy poker face. There are lines of tension in his shoulders like live wires. There's something wrong.

"I'm okay, Maine," Wash says, making his voice careful, gentle. "Just get rid of it."

Maine raises a brow, holds a hand out flat above the flash drive. Makes a fist, releases it. When he turns his hand over, his palm is empty, the drive nowhere to be seen.

He reaches out, and Wash, still unnerved, flinches. Just for a moment, he flinches. But Maine only grabs the front of Wash's beanie and tugs it down over his eyes. Wash blinks in the darkness, taking in the sound of cutlery clattering, the smells of fresh dough and melted cheese.

"You're okay," Maine says, and something in the room shifts, some elastic tension finally snapping.

Eventually Wash pulls the beanie off altogether, listening to the crackle of static in his hair, and leans back in his booth to watch the fountain flash green and gold and green and gold, to watch the reflected motes of light send constellations across the walls.

* * *

Shore leave is cut short; a Pelican from the MoI arrives to pick them up that afternoon.

Connie's waiting for Wash when he finally finishes his debriefing and stumbles into his quarters. His arm aches. His head is throbbing. He's pretty sure he's never actually given Connie the passcode to unlock his room.

"Uh," he says.

She's sitting hunched over on his bunk, elbows on her thighs, hands hanging limp in front of her. She's staring down, picking at a thumbnail. "Hey, Wash," she says. "Heard you got a little fucked up on the mission."

He hesitates on the threshold for a moment, then steps across it and dumps his duffel in a corner. He keeps the door open. "Me and motorcycles have not, historically, gotten along well."

"And you do _so _well with cars," she says, a teasing edge to her voice.

He shrugs his good shoulder; the other's still immobilized in its sling. "A little road burn, a couple small fractures. Nothing too serious."

She watches him start to unpack his clothing, fold it, and return it to its proper drawers, inspection-neat. There's an anticipation to her silence, like she's waiting for him to ask something. Finally, with a hint of exasperation, she says, "You're not wondering where we were that whole time you and Maine were stuck on Fell?"

Wash shrugs. "Figured it wasn't relevant. The Director would've told us if it were."

"How do you do that?"

He pauses, uneasy. "Fold clothes? Pretty sure there's no real trick to it."

She leans forward. "How do you act like it doesn't bother you?"

For a moment, he focuses intently on balling up a pair of socks. His head is pounding again. "Connie, cut the bullshit. What's going on?"

"Nothing," she says. "That's the problem. Nothing. As far as I can tell—and I have my sources—we didn't do anything in particular during those two days you were gone. We were in the vicinity. We could've picked you up, but for some reason the Director wanted you to stay."

"I was in the hospital."

"You could've much more easily recovered here."

Wash groans and rubs at his eyes. "I don't want to hear this, Connie. I don't know what's gotten into you lately. You and Maine both."

Connie cocks her head to one side, her brow furrowing. "Maine? What did Maine do?"

"Nothing," he says, quickly. "Maine did nothing! You're the one who's wandering in here and—" He cuts himself off. "Connie, you know I don't have a good head for this stuff. I just want to do my job. So if you've got something to say, come out and say it."

She stares across the room at him, and the effort's reflected in her face, the work it takes her to drag herself back and start along a new line of persuasion. "Wash, if this was some fucked-up test of your loyalty, and if you're saying Maine was in on it—"

"Connie. Goodnight."

She holds up her hands. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm not upset!" Wash scrubs a hand back through his hair. "Why does everyone keep thinking I'm upset? I'm happy here, Connie. I'm happy with what we're doing. I'm happy I can do some good. This is... this is just how things work. There are trade-offs, there are these stupid games like the leaderboard, but only because what we do is so important. It's a necessary evil."

"You believe that?"

"Of course." He turns. He realizes, for the first time, that she's been sitting in the dark, her hair matted against her head like she's been tossing and turning. "You don't," he says. It's not a question. He leans back against the wall, folding his arms. Thinks of the rain echoing against his helmet, not so long ago. "He's given us everything, you know."

"Oh," she says, softly, "I know." She stands. "It's okay, Wash. This was a mistake. I'll get out of your hair."

"Connie..."

She pushes past him. She smells like gun polish and sweat and, faintly, blueberries. She pauses in the hallway, looking back. "Glad you're okay, Wash. Glad you're still on the leaderboard. You tell Maine he got bumped back up from fourth to third. Wonder what he did to deserve that."

She turns and walks away, leaving him alone in the dark, breathing a little too hard, his heart pounding a little too loud. It won't be the first time.

He turns on the light, bends over his duffel again, feels around to make sure it's empty. It's not. He pulls out a ridiculous orange beanie. Stares at it until his chronometer informs him of precisely how little time he's got until his morning training sessions.

He sinks stiffly back onto his bunk, turning his aching shoulder to the side that's still warm from Connie's body, and presses his face into the pillow until the lights behind his eyelids start flickering like stars.


	4. Chapter 4

This is what it's like to be a Freelancer.

* * *

Shore leave isn't always paradise planets with gorgeous hotels and long beaches and delicious food. This time, shore leave is a tiny town on a near-deserted colony with precisely one tourist attraction: a busted-up bar called the Last Regret.

It's raining outside, turning the ground to a sludgy mess, and Wash spends the first five minutes of his leave picking the mud out of his boots with a stick placed next to the door for that express purpose. The bartender comes over to inspect his work—"There's a moss out in that mud that's practically impossible to kill once it spreads"—and finally pronounces him fit to tread the beer-sticky floor over to the bar, where York is the sole customer. Local time isn't quite noon.

"Look who finally made it off-ship," York says, kicking out a barstool for Wash to hop up next to him. The new scar running into his hairline is already fading; the small imperfection suits him. "Seen any of the others yet?"

"Shouldn't be far behind me. I was in a meeting with Internals." Wash blinks when the bartender pushes a dirty glass full of clear liquid in front of him. "I, uh. I didn't order this."

York, whose smile is maybe more crooked than usual, gives Wash a little push, nearly knocking him off his seat. Adjusting to force controls outside the armor is more difficult than they'd all expected. Also, well. There's an empty glass in front of him already. "Local moonshine," he says. "Great shit."

Wash squints at it. "Not sure I want any shit," he says, and the bartender, polishing a glass on the other side of the room, snorts. But York is looking at him earnestly, and Wash, feeling a residual twinge in the fresh ridge of scar tissue between his shoulderblades, figures maybe this is an apology of sorts. He takes a hesitant sip, then swallows a more substantial gulp. It burns going down, but the aftertaste is improbably honey-smooth, sending a warm tingling through his fingers and toes. "Wow. This isn't bad."

"Oh, no, it's definitely horrible," York says with a grin. "We're going to get really fucked up tonight. Today. Whatever."

Wash turns in his seat as the door chimes, signaling the twins' arrival. The bartender sighs and moves back to usher them through another five-minute mud-removal ritual. South rolls her eyes and leans on North, making a special effort to flick gobs of mud off her shoes and onto the floor, where the bartender scrubs it up with a glower.

Wash takes another drink, thoughtfully, then holds the glass up to the light. "I've got a pretty high tolerance," he says. "Unauthorized stills are a mainstay near the front lines. Five years of the worst poison you can imagine, that sort of thing."

York bunches a hand into the back of Wash's shirt, stopping his slow slide toward the ground and settling him more firmly on his barstool. "Uh-huh," he says. "Whatever you say, Wash. Another?"

Which is how, two hours later, with most of his squad either planted behind the bar or around a pool table, a giggling York and South convince him it'll be a great idea to try out the bar's main attraction: a rusty old machine that purports to be a flight simulator but is probably more likely to result in a case of chiropractic malpractice.

"You gotta learn to fly better, Wash," South says, with a solemn air she keeps undermining by smirking at York. "Never know when we might need a fast evac."

"That's why you fucks have me," Pilot 479er calls from where she's lining up a shot at the table. "Don't go giving away my job."

"I wouldn't feel overly threatened by Wash," Connie says, but she offers him an apologetic salute of her glass, which he returns with a flourish that splashes half his drink across the bar.

But he hesitates when York wraps an arm around his shoulders and directs him toward the simulator. "It looks a little unsafe," he says.

The bartender is watching their stumbling progress with interest. "Hey, we're not liable for any injuries you might sustain on that thing. I mean, I'll call an ambulance, but that's about it."

"We're UNSC," York calls back. "I think we can handle it."

The bartender holds up her hands and turns back to counting out her register.

Wash clambers up to straddle the machine; in lieu of a cockpit, there's a sort of saddle seat, complete with stirrups bolted to the sides of the flyer. Wash fits his feet in the loops, finds an accelerator pedal on the right one, and settles a little more comfortably, gripping the handlebars. "Hey, this is more like a motorcycle. That's no problem."

North has come up behind his sister and York with a worried expression. "Wash," he says. "Didn't you put yourself in the hospital the last time you rode a motorcycle?"

Wash holds up a quelling finger; York grabs him by the back of the shirt again and keeps him from sliding off the machine. "That was not my fault. There were people chasing me with guns. Also, the road was slippery. This is bolted down."

North rubs the palm of his hand into his forehead. "Jesus Christ, this can't possibly end well."

"This is going to be amazing," South says.

York leans in, lowering his voice to a carrying stage-whisper. His breath smells like moonshine, but he sounds like he's pushing past drunkenness to sincerity. "You're okay, right, man? I mean, you're good? They let you out like a week ago, so I figured—"

"I'm good," Wash says, shortly. "C'mon, let's get this thing started."

Everyone else backs off, away from the padded section of flooring, and Wash just has time to suck in a breath before a holodisplay flickers to life above the handlebars, a simple HUD displaying a poorly rendered forest with a path running through it. "_START YOUR ENGINES_," blares a tinny voice from the speaker.

He presses the accelerator to full. The machine lurches into life. Wash clenches his legs for a better grip, leaning into the first turn as the flyer tilts beneath him with a grinding shriek of overstressed metal. The second turn is sluggish and slow, and he watches his avatar on the screen take a wide swerve away from the path and into the woods. Into the very thick woods. Into the very thick woods littered with fallen logs.

"Ohhh no," Wash says, and his flyer hits the first virtual log with a very real thump that nearly bucks him off. After that, he's clinging for dear life, locking his hands around the handlebars and hunching down over the bike as it jolts and shakes beneath him—

* * *

—_and Wash tightens his arms in a headlock from behind, his feet actually dangling off the floor, trying to pull together enough leverage from his suit's overstressed servos to choke out the Insurrectionist heavy before he gets any bright ideas. Like, say, delivering the final blow to the dazed and semi-conscious York slumped at his feet._

_Distraction. Right. Wash puts his legs into it, latches onto the guy like a limpet as he flails back, his shotgun firing wildly just to the left of Wash's head._

"_Get up!" Wash yells, hoping that last hit hasn't taken out York's radio as well. "C'mon, York, you gotta get up! I can't hold this guy off much longer!"_

"_Wash, we're approaching your position," North says. "Carolina and Maine are coming in from the other side."_

"_Hurry up!" Wash yelps, just as the heavy spins and slams himself back into a wall. Wash grunts with the impact, but grimly keeps his grip, pulling the crook of his elbow harder back against the guy's trachea._

"_Almost there," Carolina says. "York, get up."_

_York coughs, and Wash can see him rolling onto his side, still apparently half-conscious. But the heavy's uninterested in him, already faltering in Wash's chokehold, his steps becoming less certain. _

_Wash is just starting to ease up on his grip—if they can keep the guy alive for questioning, it'll make this mission a whole lot easier—when a seven-inch ka-bar blade slams hilt-deep between his shoulderblades. It doesn't hurt, not at first, so he just lets out a little gasp. But then his HUD lights up with warnings, telling him in alarms and flashes of red that he's hurt, actually, that he's hemorrhaging into his chest cavity, that the blade has penetrated between two vertebrae, that spinal function has been compromised._

_His grip relaxes all at once, and he gags on another sharp gasp when he hits the floor hard, shoulder and hip and head impacting all at once. The pain is overwhelmed by a dull heaviness to his limbs, a coldness creeping up his legs. He can't move. He can't... _

_The heavy stumbles away from him, rubbing his throat, snarling something at a second Insurrectionist who's just emerged from the corridor, another knife still in her hand. She walks up to Wash, rolls him onto his stomach with the toe of her boot. Plants one foot into the small of his back and yanks her knife free._

_It hurts, finally, completely. He screams for a moment, but the pain smothers even that. He thinks maybe he's trying to clench all his muscles, like he's in a nine-G spin, like he's pulling in gasps of air past the overwhelming pressure, fighting for each little hiccup of breath._

_South's voice filters in, shaky and strident, and Wash realizes they're all listening to him die over the radio. "Jesus Christ, will somebody please—"_

* * *

"—shut him up?"

Wash blinks slowly across the table at South, who's glowering at him. There's a glass of moonshine in his hands, and a pleasant warmth enveloping him, but he's pretty sure he hasn't said a word in the past hour. "What?"

"You're doing that thing!" South points at him. She's tilting precariously in her chair, and Connie pushes a bit closer to her, shoring her up against her shoulder. "That thing Maine does!"

Wash turns to look at Maine. Maine, who arrived just in time to watch him wipe out spectacularly on the flight simulator an hour ago. Maine, who hasn't said a single word since dragging him off the padded section of the floor. "Uh," says Wash. "I mean, I know Maine's hard to shut up—"

South waves a hand expressively. "That thing where you talk without saying anything! You're just sort of... staring. And it's talkative staring."

"Sorry?" Wash tries. Maine snorts, then rests a hand on the back of Wash's head, combing through his messy hair. Wash submits to the touch until Maine starts putting some weight behind his hand, pushing Wash down until his forehead's resting against the cool table. "I'm fine," Wash tells the sticky plastic tabletop. "Just getting started."

"Nah, Maine's right," says Connie. "We'll never hear the end of it if we land you back in the infirmary. Go back to the ship and sleep it off."

"It's okay," Wash says—

* * *

_—and watches as York stumbles back, firing blindly at the half-dozen Innies advancing on him. The side of York's helmet is dented with the force of the blow he took from the heavy, but he's back on his feet, he's moving into a retreat. More importantly, he's moving further away from Wash, still bleeding out face-down on the floor. "It's okay," Wash says again. He can breathe now, his onboard medical systems pushing well past the safeguards to numb him with painkillers. His right hand is pinned near his belt. With an effort, he can make the fingers clench and release. "They don't care about me. They think I'm already dead. Just keep backing off."_

"_No self-sacrificial bullshit, Wash," York yells. He fires once and knocks a guy down, twists away from another Innie's grab at his shotgun, then has to drop it in order to block a knife aimed at his chest._

"_Just hang on, Wash," Carolina says. She sounds a little out of breath, like she's pushing herself. "We're close."_

"_It's okay," Wash says, quietly. "Just stay back. There's more of them heading for York's position, but they've got to come past me first. I've just gotta—" He shifts, sucks in a breath at the jolt of pain, but his numb fingers have already managed to work a grenade free from his belt, shifting it in his hand. He only hesitates a second before depressing the primer, then relaxes, letting the live grenade roll from his fingers. His HUD lights up a warning. A countdown._

"_Wash, what the hell are you doing?" York starts toward him, then grunts when one of the Innies catches him a solid blow across the visor with the butt of her gun._

"_Oh no you don't," Carolina says, fury low and hard in her voice._

_Wash hears her speed unit before he sees her, the low thrumming roar of a human body moving at fifty miles per hour. She's too fast, she's impossibly fast, and her hand closes around the grenade at his side. She whips it up and away, down a corridor. The explosion rattles Wash's bones, ramping up the pain past the ability of the meds to contain it, but he's still breathing, quick and shallow, when the dust settles. "Stay with him, Maine. I'm gonna help York out," she says, but pauses for a split-second, looking down at Wash. "Got you," she says softly—_

* * *

—and Wash tilts his head back to blink up at her. Carolina's got a hand on the back of his chair, keeping him from overbalancing and toppling back. Her expression, he thinks, is somewhere between tolerant and amused. He hasn't seen her yet tonight, but her hair is down and that sort of short-circuits his brain because he's not entirely sure he's ever seen it like that before. York, standing beside her, is staring at her like he's completely blitzed.

"Thanks, boss," Wash says, leaning forward so the front legs of his chair land solidly on the ground.

Carolina rolls her eyes. "Maine tell you to get some rest, Wash?"

Beside him, Maine only shrugs, so Wash says, a little sheepishly, "Yeah."

"Good," says Carolina. "Consider it an order." She glances over to York. "I've got something to say to you too, York. Moonshine? Really?"

"Ooh," South says in a stage-whisper. "Bet she's gonna punish him real good."

Carolina pretends not to hear. York actually _blushes_.

Wash pushes to his feet, then sways alarmingly. "Uh," he says. "I don't feel so good."

* * *

"_No shit," South murmurs. _

_Wash's helmet is off; the smell of blood is hanging heavy in the air, making him gag. He's been rolled gently onto his side, and the twins are working on divesting him of his chestpiece. His armor's emergency medical suite is in full effect, sending him buzzing into and out of focus. A hazy, thick nausea is settling in his gut. _

_He blinks slow, opens his eyes to the ceiling. Some time's passed, but he's in the same room. He's cold, but he's stopped shivering. His hardsuit's been mostly dismantled. It's lying in pieces next to him. Connie is leaning over him, her helmet off. She smiles, lopsided. "You're okay," she says. "Rescue's here, Wash. Right now, you need to rest. Just go to sleep. It'll be okay."_

_Wash is pretty sure she's lying. He's getting better at reading people, better at figuring out what they're thinking, what they're saying between the lines. He's pretty sure rescue's been delayed. He's pretty sure he's going to die in this room. _

_He gasps in a breath, releases it on a cough, and Carolina comes over. She's still wearing her helmet, which is somehow reassuring. She doesn't say anything, just crouches next to Connie and puts a hand on his shoulder. He can't feel it. He closes his eyes._

_Someone's radio crackles, a muffled voice yelling landing coordinates and an ETA. South says, "You unbelievably lucky son of a bitch."_

_When Wash opens his eyes again, it's to the sound of Pelican engines. Maine is sitting next to him, a hand pressed against his forehead. He's smiling. Smirking. "Lucky," he says._

* * *

Wash groans. "I don't feel very lucky," he says, and spits one last time into the basin. Maine has been at his side for the entire disgusting technicolor adventure, keeping his sweaty hair out of his face with a hand against his forehead. The bathroom floors have apparently fallen prey to the moss growing outside, which is good news for his knees if nothing else. "Moonshine is terrible. York's terrible. You're terrible."

Maine grins. Wash can _hear _the smirk.

"Shut up," he says, and sinks down to curl into a ball of misery on the floor. "Leave me to die in peace. Remember me fondly. Embellish my deeds. Don't talk about the thing with the yo-yo or I'll come back and haunt your ass."

Maine dangles something in front of his face. It takes Wash a second to focus his eyes and recognize it as a stick of gum.

"Thanks," he says, taking it grudgingly. He doesn't protest when Maine yanks him to his feet, just stumbles over to wash his hands and wash out his mouth and stare at his hollow-eyed reflection in the dirty mirror. "Apart from the whole death-by-probably-illegal-moonshine thing, this wasn't a bad night."

"Had worse," Maine grunts, coming up beside him. He's irritatingly sober, considering Wash just watched him drink South under the table.

Wash stares at himself in the mirror a moment longer, then sighs and hikes up his shirt, twisting. He can see, overlaid on the older, fainter scars running down his back, the bright red mark left by the Insurrectionist knife. Half an inch from the heart. The surgeons didn't leave a scar with their peripheral work, but the original wound proved to be more determinedly dramatic. Some nights, when he's feeling particularly morbid, Wash thinks about what it means to be designed to carry your failures tattooed permanently into your skin.

He doesn't realize he's mumbling his thoughts aloud until he glances up at Maine's reflection and meets his eyes. "You survived," Maine says, with a shrug. "You keep surviving."

"Yeah," Wash says, and releases his shirt, concealing the scar again. He pops the gum in his mouth and winces as he bites down. Cinnamon. Maine knows he hates cinnamon. "With a little help from my friends. C'mon, asshole, let's get back to the ship."

Maine grins. "Right behind you."


	5. Chapter 5

This is what it's like.

* * *

A familiar place. Wash hunches forward on the barstool, feels the ghost of a hand on his shoulder. Thinks he remembers someone's lips on his glass, the warm burn of whiskey. The taste of someone else's mouth.

"You're in my seat, buddy."

Wash sways, takes another drink, feels his teeth click against the glass. Someone is behind him. Someone is behind him, to his left. Someone has a hand on his shoulder.

Epsilon doesn't like that.

"Fuck off," Wash says.

The guy behind him leans in closer; even over his own boozy haze, Wash can smell the alcohol on his breath. "The fuck did you just say to me? What the—"

* * *

"—_fuck was that?"_

_Maine is sitting on his bunk, wrapping his split knuckles with gauze. He's still wearing most of his armor, including the helmet. When Wash strides in, he doesn't so much as glance up at him._

"_York's been in surgery for hours! They say he's going to lose the eye."_

_Maine shrugs. "He'll live."_

_It takes a conscious effort for Wash to relax his hands from fists. "You violated protocol, put two operatives' lives at risk, and the Director praised you for it."_

_This time, Maine tilts his helmet at him. "Orders," he says._

_Wash feels a chill that runs straight through his armor, and rubs ineffectually at his arms. He can't get the image of York's shattered visor out of his head, the little break in Carolina's voice when she'd ordered them back to their duties. The blood on the training room floor. _

_He means to say something dismissive, means to go run laps until his brain stops working. Instead, he says, in a small voice, "That day on the training floor, you and me, if the Director had asked you to test me with live rounds, would you have done it?"_

_Maine looks at him. "Yes," he says._

_Wash sags back against the wall, slides down until he's sitting on the floor. The old bullet-wound in his back twinges, setting off aches along even older scars. Maine goes back to wrapping his knuckles. Wash stares at his hands in his lap. _

"_Yeah," he says. He tilts his head back, lets it rest against the wall behind him. "Yeah, I know."_

* * *

The fight's quick, vicious, and entirely one-sided. Wash spins in his barstool, using the drunk's grip on his shoulder as leverage, and slams his face into the bar. With the force of his armor's servos behind it, the blow knocks out most of his teeth, and the guy chokes and coughs, slumping to the floor as soon as Wash releases his grip.

The bartender is staring at Wash. "If I ask you to go outside and cool down while I call this asshole an ambulance," she says, "you gonna give me any trouble?"

Wash sketches a shaky salute, slides off the barstool. Epsilon suggests that he kick the drunk in the back of the head before leaving, and Wash is happy to oblige. The bartender snarls something at him, so he stumbles outside, slumps down on the bench next to the front door—

* * *

—_and puts his head in his hands. He's shaking, keyed up._ _He jumped off a fucking _building_. There's blood on his hands._

_Somebody's saying his name. For the first time in months, it actually takes him a while to remember that yeah, he's Washington, that's him._

_He looks up. North is crouched in front of him, looking strangely small out of armor, his brow creased in a frown. His hair's wet like he just took a shower. "Wash, you with me?"_

_Wash straightens. "Any news?"_

_North sighs, slumping into the chair beside him. "Wyoming's okay, turns out. Docs say he's unbelievably lucky. The bullets somehow missed every single major organ. But he's, ah. He's in a lot of pain."_

_The unfamiliar edge in North's voice finally pushes Wash's brain into action. "It's not your fault."_

"_I led the team," North says. "Kinda makes it my fault." He shakes his head as though to clear it. "Sorry. You must be worried about Maine. They managed to get him stabilized, but there was extensive damage to his vocal cords."_

"_Oh," Wash says. He's getting tired, he's getting so tired of hearing the litany of his friends' injuries. Blood on the training room floor._

_North rests a hand on his shoulder; it's meant to be comforting, but Wash can't feel a thing through the armor. "Hey, he'll be okay. He never did talk much. He'll adjust quickly."_

_There's something wrong with that statement, there's something so wrong, but Wash can't figure out how to put the wrongness into words. He shrugs._

"_You're both still on the leaderboard," North adds._

_Wash feels sick. "I should," he says, "I should go, I have to... go." He staggers to his feet, shrugs off North's hand, moves on autopilot to the locker room. Strips off his armor and his bodysuit and stands under the shower, turning the water hotter and hotter until the automatic safeties come on, breathing in the steam, breathing, just breathing._

_After a while, he turns the water as cold as it'll go, until he's shivering violently. With his eyes closed, it almost feels like rain._

* * *

His head's a wash of static. It's started raining, and the quiet rumble of thunder is turning Epsilon wistful. Wash can deal with wistful.

The drink's long gone, the glass broken at his feet. He wonders if he's supposed to pay for that.

"You got somewhere to go tonight, buddy?" The bartender's crouched in front of him. Her hair's wet, sticking to her forehead. She hands him the helmet he left under the bar. "I mean, I assume even dudes in creepy robot armor gotta sleep sometime."

Wash takes the helmet from her, watches the rain wick away from its hydrophobic visor, then lets it drop back to the ground. "The guy I hit—"

"In surgery," the bartender says. "You hit him pretty hard. Apparently he stopped breathing on the way to the hospital."

"Oh," says Wash. Epsilon prods, so he says, "Did you know him?"

"My asshole brother," says the bartender. "Don't worry about it."

"Oh," says Wash, again. Epsilon settles uneasily.

She tilts her head, frowning. "You're kinda—"

* * *

"—_fucked up, Wash," says York. "You both are. I know how close you were to Connie."_

"_CT," Wash says. He's wrapping his hands the way she taught him, stares across the training room to see Maine doing the same. "She told me to call her CT."_

"_Right, yeah, CT," says York, impatiently. "What I'm saying is, engaging in a late-night out-of-armor hand-to-hand brawl with Maine may not be the most healthy way to grieve. Or, you know, keep breathing."_

"_We're next in the rotation, according to the Director. Not the first time I've been volunteered for a fight with this guy. Besides, he never got to finish his training with Sigma." Wash bares his teeth at York in a grin. "You wanna join in?"_

_York shakes his head. "This is messed up. I'm getting the medics."_

"_Suit yourself," Wash calls after him, and charges._

_The fight is brief and brutal. Wash has never been much for hand-to-hand, and with Sigma changing up Maine's staid fighting patterns, he only manages to land one quick rabbit punch, which Maine shrugs off effortlessly. Then Maine fades left and blitzes forward to hit him square in the chest with a closed fist._

_Wash can't breathe. Instantly. Maine hits him again, in the same spot, and this time the crack of his ribs is audible. He doesn't go down until the third hit, a roundhouse kick that catches him behind the ear, flattens him to the ground._

_He doesn't pass out. He lies facedown on the floor, wheezing blood, waiting for the medics to take him away. Maine stands over him, his head tilted to one side, his lips pressed together into a thin line, and doesn't say a word._

* * *

"This guy one of yours?" asks the bartender, but she's not speaking to Wash. She's speaking to a figure in white armor who's standing out in the rain.

When Sigma flickers to life beside Maine, Epsilon does something strange in Wash's head, a sort of push/pull. Wash feels his own breath catch, and he leans forward to snatch at his helmet, squinting through the tiny droplets of rain on his eyelashes until they smear everything into a blur. When he slips the helmet on, seals blocking out the gentle clatter of the rain, Epsilon relaxes a little, sliding back into a storage compartment. His vision clears.

"Agent Washington," Sigma says. "We were worried when you didn't report back to the rendezvous point. Are you still having significant difficulty with Epsilon? It's unfortunate that you continue to relapse on this front."

Wash laughs. It's rough and uncomfortable, and he doubles over, retching for a moment. "Something's wrong," he says. "Something's been wrong for a long time and I think I'm starting to remember—"

_**STOP.**_

The word, flickering across the long-neglected text channel he keeps open to Maine, makes him look up sharply, but Maine says nothing, does nothing.

"Or not," Wash says, and Maine cocks his head to one side. "Maybe I should have him looked at again. Just in case."

"That's probably wise," says Sigma. "You have been listed as AWOL for nearly two days; you abandoned your post during a mission and never returned. The Director sent us to find you. Do you remember?"

Wash blinks slowly. There's a weariness weighing on him that lends truth to the statement. He thinks about asking whether his inattention got someone hurt, got someone killed. Epsilon flinches away from the thought. "So you're the cavalry," he says instead. He has a blurry, vague sense that this has happened before, that there was a long, silent slumber in between. Sleep sounds pretty good about now. "I should come with you." Epsilon shivers, caught again in the push/pull.

The bartender's still standing beside him, behind him. He only realizes this when she snorts, slaps him on the back. "Good luck, creepy fucked-up robot armor dude." By the time he thinks to turn back, she's already disappeared into the bar.

"Our transport is just outside town," Sigma says, "A short walk may do you both some good."

As Sigma flickers away, a tendril of memory unfurls in Wash's mind. A peace offering from Epsilon, maybe. As he stumbles obediently after Maine, he opens the text link one more time, sends, _**So Sigma's a bit of a dick, huh?**_

Maine doesn't reply, but Wash thinks he sees his hand twitch as though stifling the signal of a smile.


	6. Epilogue: Three Stories

**EPILOGUE: THREE STORIES**

**ONE**

The last time he sees Maine, it's snowing.

The ragged gash torn through the hull of the ship opens onto storm clouds, thick snowflakes melting in their slow drift through the shredded decks above him. Wash, lying on his back, stares up and picks out patterns in the swirling flakes, feeling dizzy and weightless. He remembers the one time it snowed back in Texas. He remembers Allison standing under the street lights, staring up at the sky, laughing—

He doesn't. He doesn't remember. He grew up on a desert colony and found friends in the pouring rain and lost them, one by one, in the sterile confines of a spaceship. His hands spasm and clench into fists. He feels dizzy and weightless. He remembers. He—

"You're still here."

Wash's HUD is flashing warnings about the damaged crossbeams above him groaning under the unaccustomed strain of planetary gravity. The snow is swirling. The snow is melting. He's cold.

Footsteps send vibrations through the deck and, by contact, through his helmet. He thinks it's entirely possible the vibrations will shake him apart. He wonders if they ever got the waste disposal unit in his helmet working properly. He wonders how much it hurt Allison to die.

A flicker of light above him. A flare. "Hello, Agent Washington," Sigma says.

Wash blinks. Coughs. "Sigma," he says. His voice is small and shaking. He remembers... he remembers the twins beside his bed. Telling him everything's okay. Telling him Epsilon's gone. Telling him lots of things. "Sigma, what's happening? Did we crash?"

"We did," Sigma says. "The traitors will be punished. This is only a minor setback."

"Oh," says Wash. He coughs again.

"Your armor's integrity has been compromised," Sigma explains, helpfully. "It is no longer airtight. The power cell was damaged in the crash."

Wash's eyes are watering; smoke, he realizes. He can't move. "I can't move."

"Here," says Sigma.

Maine looms in nearer, wedges a hand under Wash's chin and pops the seals, yanking off his helmet. Wash chokes on the influx of smoke, coughing, trying to curl in on himself, but the armor won't move without power. "Maine. Maine, c'mon, get me out of this."

Maine stares, tilts his head to one side. Wash feels small, pinned, and the sensation is starting a slow boil of panic in his chest. "Sigma, what—"

"We do not have much time," Sigma says. "He no longer has Epsilon. He is not important. Help is on the way, Agent Washington. We have... other matters that need attending."

Maine grunts and straightens up, Sigma flaring at his side.

Epsilon is distant, Wash thinks, but not entirely gone. His memory isn't something that can be excised surgically. There are flashes. There are fragments, pieces.

He remembers Sigma's smile.

"I remember," Wash chokes out through another coughing fit.

In an instant, Sigma is beside him again. "What do you remember, Agent Washington?"

Wash stares at him through streaming eyes. "Everything."

Sigma flinches, recovers, sighs. "We are running out of time. Many people are running out of time. Agent Maine."

Maine is crouched beside Wash again. Wash barely has time to register the knife in Maine's hand before it's pressing delicately into the skin just below his right eye.

"Maine," Wash says. He knows he could jack-knife, twist up, force Maine away, if not for the armor weighing down his limbs. He can't move. He swallows another cough, shuddering. "Maine, what are you doing?"

Maine tilts his head again, traces the knife across the bridge of Wash's nose. It doesn't hurt; he's not pushing hard. Wash holds his breath. Maine puts a little more weight into the tip of the blade. "_Maine_."

"Perhaps it is better this way," Sigma says. He sounds very far away, impossibly distant beyond the roaring in Wash's ears. "When they find him, after all these betrayals, they will want to discover what he knows. He will suffer, Agent Maine. You know that there is something you can do for him now."

Maine's hand is shaking. The knife skitters across Wash's cheek, draws a thin, sharp line. The shock of it drags Wash out of his stupor, icy adrenaline shifting his mind back into focus. "Maine. Maine, listen to me. You have to take Sigma offline. Just for a second. Just for-"

"He will suffer, Agent Maine," Sigma says again. "They will all suffer. You can prevent that."

Maine's shaking stills. Wash only has time to say, "No, wait," before Maine reaches out, drags down the high collar of his bodysuit, and slits his throat.

Wash jerks, wrenching his arms inside the bonds of his armor, but they're pinned down, he's pinned down. The first ragged gasp he manages is almost drowned out by the frantic pulse of his heartbeat. His thoughts are frantic, unfinished. He has to... he just has to...

"He will die quickly," Sigma says, a brighter flare among the encroaching flames. "You did well."

Maine, his white armor marred by a spray of blood, gives a heavy sigh, drags himself to his feet, and then his footsteps are receding.

Wash stares up through the hole in the hull. Somewhere the memory of Epsilon is gasping, and somewhere Allison is running, and somewhere his friends are falling one by one, and somewhere entirely different he's waiting to bleed out, writhing inside his armor but already weakening, choking on a scream that he's not entirely sure is his own. His limbs are heavy and numb, and the darkness encroaching on his vision pulses and throbs. It doesn't... it doesn't hurt as much as he expected. It doesn't hurt.

A shadow pulls itself from the deeper shadows in the corner of the room, murmurs, "Oh dear."

He's drifting. The snow's drifting. There's a gloved hand at his throat.

* * *

When Wash opens his eyes, he's alone in a white room with Agent Florida.

"Hello," Florida says, and smiles kindly. The sentiment is undercut by the dried blood on his armor, splashes of it on his arms and chest. "We were very worried about you, my boy."

Wash shifts one of his arms, experimentally, and shivers as numbness tickles up and down the limb. He opens his cracked lips to ask for water. Still smiling, Florida moves in closer, rests a hand on his shoulder. "It's probably best if you don't speak, Washington. Agent Maine was very careful with his carving, but we wouldn't want to reopen old wounds."

Wash exhales, squeezing his eyes shut until the sparks on the back of his eyelids start to look too much like a flame. When he opens them again, everything is wavering. His eyes are dry. He wants a drink of water.

"You lost a great deal of blood," Florida says. "Your brain was starved of oxygen for several minutes as a result. There may have been some permanent damage. But I'm sure the doctors here have... tests they can run. You'll be back up to speed in no time."

Florida leans forward, combs his fingers through Wash's hair, and Wash flinches, breathing harshly through his mouth. "The Director didn't want me to tell you this," Florida says, apparently unoffended by his reaction. "But some of your friends escaped. The twins, York. Texas. Some did not."

Wash closes his eyes again, panting for breath. There are names, now, burned on the backs of his eyelids. He wants to speak those names, but all he manages is a whimper.

"Mm," Florida says, sympathetically. "It is a difficult situation. But my part is finished. I've been reassigned. I just wanted to stop in and make sure you'd be all right. I always say it's the least you can do once you've had your fingers in somebody's throat."

He traces a finger along the bandages, and Wash's eyes snap open. Florida's expression is oddly intent. "And you will be all right, Agent Washington. It may take some time, but I firmly believe that. You mustn't give up. You mustn't give in. You mustn't tell them what you know."

Now Wash is holding his breath, shuddering at the feeling of memories coiling and uncoiling in his mind. Florida smiles at his expression. "Oh, don't look so shocked, my boy. We all have our own private, secret rebellions. Mine occasionally include looping a few minutes of monitor footage in a hospital room to allow for a real heart-to-heart. All this may be for the best, but that doesn't make it right. Take your time, keep yourself alive, but make sure you do the right thing in the end. That's what really matters."

Wash blinks, tries to speak, but all that comes out is a low whine. Florida smiles, presses a button on the monitor beside Wash's bed. Everything sharpens and then fades.

When he wakes up again, Florida is gone.

"Good morning, Agent Washington," says the Director. "We have a great deal to discuss."

* * *

**TWO**

Rain is coming down in sheets. Wash feels slow, clumsy, his boots sticking in the mud. He's cold, shaking in his armor.

He can't remember how he got here.

His HUD is strange, faded, flickering, and it doesn't make any sense. He sees shadows in the rain, people walking ahead of him, but only two are coming up on sensors. Lightning crashes somewhere nearby, and he flinches, stumbling forward and into something solid.

York rests steadying hands on his shoulders. "Whoa, hey. What's the hurry?" His grip tightens when Wash doesn't respond. "Wash?"

When Wash stares at him, his helmet shifts and flickers, solid one moment, shattered the next. The blood on his armor is... it's gone. His helmet is intact. Of course it is. York cocks his head to the side. "I'm okay," Wash says. "Sorry. I guess I just got a little dizzy, there."

"Hm," says York, sounding unconvinced. They're being left behind by the rest of his group, so he turns and yells, "Hey, hold up a sec!"

Wash winces. "Seriously, York, it's not—"

South jogs up behind York, and Wash can't look at her, he can't look at her straight-on. "So what's the deal? You dragging your heels?"

"Hey," North says, in a tone of soft rebuke. There are no scorch-marks scuffing his armor. "Lay off, South. He doesn't look so good. Wash, you okay?"

"Fine," Wash says, annoyed. "I'm fine. Why does everyone keep asking?"

"Maybe because you're wobbling around like you're drunk," Connie says, and the sound of her voice puts a lump in his throat and starts him shaking again.

"No, something's definitely wrong," York says. He backs up a step, and then Wash's field of vision is filled with a teal helmet.

"Wash," says Carolina, "Wash, you with us?" She half-turns to York, says, "His biocomm's coming in strange. Wash, can you take off your helmet?"

He does, fumbling with shaking fingers, and the rain on his face is impossibly cold against his burning skin. "I'm fine," he says. "What's wrong with everyone? I'm—"

He sways. North gets to him first, catches him when he slumps forward, and for a moment Wash just presses his forehead against the cool armor, breathing hard. The air smells like smoke. He can't feel the rain anymore.

Someone says, "Uh. Wash?"

Wash shudders, gasping. The sun's too hot on the back of his neck.

The hands on his upper arms shift, bearing him more-or-less gently to the ground. The armor's purple, but it's the wrong armor, he thinks, it's not right. There's no mud beneath him, only sand, only sand...

Doc drags off his own helmet, frowns down at him. "Okay, so this looks bad. Uh. Just stay calm, you're probably not going to die?"

The heat in Wash's face is burning, and he rolls onto his side, coughing and retching as the too-bright horizon tilts and spins in his vision. He's vaguely grateful he hasn't eaten much in the past few days.

Doc mutters, "Well, great," and pats him uselessly on the shoulder. Wash shrugs him off, spits a couple times, wipes his mouth on the sandblasted grit of his gauntlet. He's still shaking.

"Yeah," says Doc, resting back on his haunches, "so it's probably, like, some horrible virus thing that's gonna eat your brain. Or heatstroke. One of the two. Hey, why'd you take off your helmet back there? I don't know if you noticed, but it's kinda hot out here."

"Shut. Up," Wash grits out, and huddles into a ball, both arms pressed to the sides of his head. His head... his head is shards of broken glass grinding each other down.

Doc says, "Whoa, no, wait, I wasn't—" and then breaks off with a little yelp of pain. Wash uncurls enough to see the Meta lift Doc up by his collar again. Doc's nose is bleeding, clearly broken, and he looks terrified. The Meta goes in for another punch.

"Stop," Wash says. "Meta, stop. He wasn't hurting me."

Meta looks at Wash. Looks at Doc. Drops Doc like a cat dropping a bird and watches him fall back on his ass, whimpering.

"Okay," Wash says. His tongue feels thick and clumsy, and his head feels too heavy to hold up any longer. He lets it thump back against the sand. "We just have to—"

Meta keeps looking at Wash. He moves. He moves _fast_. He pushes Wash onto his back, straddles him and pins him down. Fits one huge hand loosely around Wash's throat.

Wash stares up at him, barely daring to breathe, and says, very calmly, "Meta, stop. Get off."

Meta's helmet cocks to one side. He pulls down the collar of Wash's bodysuit, traces a finger against the old scar running along his throat. The swell of panic in Wash's chest pushes past the ache in his skull, past common sense, and he thrashes against the weight holding him down, driving his legs helplessly into the sand. He has to get through to him. He has to— "_Maine_!"

No reaction. Meta shifts, leaning forward, and wraps his hand around Wash's throat again. His grip tightens, and Wash, feeling his airway close, gasps, "Meta. Please."

Meta stops. Stares. Rocks back, then gets to his feet, leaving Wash coughing and scrambling back, hunched over while sparks waver in front of his eyes. Doc hesitates, but eventually works up the nerve to jog over to him.

"Wow," Doc says. "You guys have a great working relationship going, I can tell."

"It's under control," Wash rasps.

"I can tell. Lie back. Drink this. Not much we can do for brain-eating viruses, but if it is heatstroke, we've gotta try to get your core temperature down."

Wash sighs, obediently sucks a couple of pouches of water dry, and sits up with a yelp when Doc dumps the third over his head. "Evaporation'll cool you down fast," Doc says, cheerfully. "Hey, you know, you were kinda mumbling back there. Who were all those people you kept talking about?"

Wash drags a hand back through his wet hair, stares over at the Meta pacing steadily to the top of a sand dune. The water dripping down his neck feels like rain.

"Nobody," he says. "Not anymore."

* * *

**THREE**

"Is he dead?"

"You're the medic, you tell me!"

"Well, I mean, there's a lot of armor in the way. It's hard to tell."

"Looks dead to me."

"That's what you said about me! I was just having a nap!"

"It was an honest mistake."

"You tried to shoot me to make sure!"

"Worked, didn't it?"

"Whoa, guys, hang on, I think he's moving."

A moment's silence.

"Nah, he's dead."

Wash coughs, groaning, and rolls onto his side. Something in his chest pulls sharper with each breath, and his fingers clench spasmodically, trying to find some sort of purchase in the ice and snow, something to brace against. If he could just find something to hold onto, if he could just—

Someone hits the release on his visor, pulls the battered helmet off his head. Wash sucks in a breath, but the cold steals his voice, shocks him back to consciousness. Consciousness _hurts_. Whoever grabbed his helmet lets him slump back to the ground, and he curls up until the side of his face presses into the snow. It's impossibly cold against his bare skin, but it only hurts for a second before the numbness starts creeping in. He closes his eyes, because, hell, he knows what dying feels like. It only hurts for a second.

"Jesus," mutters one of the sim troopers. "That guy's fucked up, Doc."

"No, it's okay," Doc says. "It'll... it'll be okay, I just have to, uh. Wash? Hey, keep breathing, okay?"

Another voice. "Wow, they teach you that when you learn to be a medic?"

A gloved hand brushes roughly against his cheek. "He's got a couple busted ribs and some contusions, but I don't think he's too badly hurt otherwise. I mean, compared to some of the stuff you guys have been through. And he's got a healing unit of some sort. He's just sorta shocky. I think." Another touch, more insistent this time, and yeah, great. Try to die with dignity, get a sim trooper poking your face. "Wash, c'mon, you gotta get out of that armor."

Stealing Freelancer armor. That's... disturbingly mercenary, coming from Doc. Wash opens one eye. "You could at least wait until I'm dead," he mutters.

"Don't tempt me," Doc says, but there's a smile in his voice.

The smile registers. Wash jolts, blinks at the suits of armor wavering in his vision. "The Meta? What—"

"We took care of him," Sarge says. "Great sacrifices were made, though. Grif almost died."

Wash takes a deeper breath, experimentally. It doesn't hurt as much as he expects. "Let me guess. The real sacrifice is that Grif didn't actually die?"

"Bingo."

"Hey!"

Wash brings up a hand to rub at a healing cut in his scalp, then pauses, arrested by the way the glove is shredded, the blood seeping through the tears in the kevlar. Doc grabs his hand and matter-of-factly starts detaching the gauntlet. Wash doesn't resist. "How... how did you kill him? Using the Warthog?"

"Yanked 'im straight off the cliff," Sarge says, and sure, Wash feels like he should resent the utter glee in the guy's voice, but... it's over. It's over.

"What about Epsilon?"

"_Church_," says someone whose armor is an unfamiliar blue-green, "got stuck in that fucking memory thing. It's dead."

"Oh," says Wash. He's shaking. He can't stop shaking.

Doc stops yanking off damaged and splintered scraps of armor, grabs him by the shoulder when he sways. "_Wash_. You gotta help me out, here. We don't have much time."

"I don't..." says Wash, but it's a token protest at best, and his voice trails off. He helps Doc pull off his warped and dented chestplate, sucking in a breath as new wounds are exposed to the cold.

Alpha, Meta, Epsilon. All dead. No ambiguity. No remains. He's won. He's killed everyone.

_It only hurts for a second._

Doc is staring at the last remaining piece of Wash's armor. The codpiece.

"Um," says Wash. "I can get that."

"I should've gone into battle like that," Grif mutters, and Simmons elbows him.

Divested of his armor, Wash manages to push himself to his feet and stands, shivering, in his bodysuit in the snow. There's a heaviness taking root in his limbs, like gravity's pulling harder and harder on him. He thinks about sinking down, about slipping beneath the ice and snow. He's wondering if the sim troopers are planning on killing him outright or just leaving him to die. Freezing to death is supposed to be almost pleasant, he figures. Just like falling asleep.

He blinks. Caboose is crouched next to him, clamping a big hand around his ankle. "Uh," he says, and has to reach out and steady himself when Caboose lifts his foot a few inches off the ground. "Caboose?"

Caboose shoves his foot into an armored boot, which ordinarily would not be a major problem except for the incipient frostbite, so it _hurts_. It burns. Wash grits his teeth and wiggles his toes and by the time he's figured out what's going on, his other foot's been similarly shoved into the other boot. "I," he says. His voice is half an octave higher than usual. "What is going on?"

"You're gonna be Church!" Caboose says, cheerfully.

The guy in the blue-green armor steps up beside him, arms folded. "Yeah," he says, in a less welcoming tone. "We're gonna let the convicted criminal who tried to kill us become the leader of our team because what the fuck else is there to do around here."

Doc, tightening the straps on Wash's brand-new cobalt blue chestplate, says, "Why, what'd you think we were doing?"

Wash says, flatly, "Looting my armor before killing me."

"Jesus," Grif says, and the blue-green armor guy jolts back and says, "What the _fuck_, dude?"

Caboose laughs, the sound high and sharp and out of place. A little forced, maybe. He stands up and slaps Wash on the back so hard he almost faceplants into the snow. "Yeah, uh, Blue Team leaders are expected to die a lot as part of the position, you know, it's in the job description." He lowers his voice into a deadpan, conspiratorial whisper. "We will make an exception."

Wash stares at him. Doc shoves Church's helmet into his hands. "C'mon, the authorities'll be here any minute."

Sarge moves in to mimic Caboose's slap on the back, but Wash manages to stumble out of the way just in time. "Blue! Get a move on!"

Wash shakes his head. "I, uh. This is a terrible plan. You know that, right?"

"That's what I said," Grif says.

"You say that about every plan," says Simmons.

The guy in blue-green armor is still looking at Wash with his arms crossed. "Look. One more dead Freelancer's not gonna raise too many red flags. Frankly, dude, they were looking for an excuse to bump you off. Nobody's gonna cry over that. And we're too fuckin' unimportant to look at too closely. It works. Just run with it."

"Choppers inbound," calls Doc. He's crouched over Wash's old armor, artfully positioning it amid the splashes of blood in the snow. "Now or never, c'mon!"

They run with it. It works.

When the comedown's finally starting to hit, after the Reds have bickered off into the sunset with their stolen Hornet, approximately twelve minutes before he passes out for two days straight, Wash catches himself stumbling to the edge of the cliff, staring down at the rocks below. A UNSC soldier glances him over curiously, then moves off to finish his investigation.

He turns. The guy in blue-green armor is standing behind him. "Tucker," he says, and it takes Wash a second to realize he means it as an introduction. "I guess I'm, like, your newest employee. Or something. And for what it's worth, I voted in favor of letting the UNSC lock you up in some secret prison. Caboose overruled me."

"Oh," says Wash. There's a nervous, uncontrollable grin starting to flicker at the corner of his mouth. He puts on a mock-jovial tone. "Glad to have you aboard."

"Jesus Christ," Tucker groans. But he stays beside Wash, staring with him over the edge of the cliff, and says, "So this creepy Meta dude was your friend or something, huh?"

"Not really," Wash says. "Maybe once. I don't know."

"Death by Red Team," Tucker says, shaking his head. "That's a pretty weak end for a Freelancer, man."

Wash shrugs. "Nobody really ever dies all at once. It's the little bits and pieces over the year that get you, in the end."

"Motherfucker," Tucker says, philosophically. He pauses. "You really thought we were just gonna strip you naked and kill you?"

"Not really," Wash says. "I thought you were gonna strip me naked and leave me out here to die. Subtle distinction."

"You're a little ray of sunshine, aren't you?"

"I'm a delight," Wash says. His vision tilts a little, then snaps back into focus. He sways on his feet. "Also, I think I'm bleeding again."

Tucker stares at him, then asks, bluntly, "Do you even care that we saved you?"

Wash stares up at the sky, at a break in the cloud cover. He sighs. "Better get Doc," he says.

Tucker shakes his head and sprints back toward the others.

Wash sits down at the edge of the precipice, breathing air filtered through a dead man's helmet. Sun's coming out from behind the clouds, maybe. He remembers a battlefield, a long time ago, a hand stretching out to help. A hand at his back. A hand twitching into the signal of a smile.

Somewhere behind him, he hears footsteps. Doc, probably, and Caboose. Tucker. His team, apparently.

_Cavalry_, he thinks, _always_, and smiles.


End file.
